Breaking a habit: A further role of the phonological loop in action control

Abstract

Recent research has suggested that keeping track of a task goal in rapid task switching may depend on the phonological loop component of working memory. In this study, we investigated whether the phonological loop plays a similar role when a single switch extending over several trials is required after many trials on which one has performed a competing task. Participants were shown pairs of digits varying in numerical and physical size, and they were required to decide which digit was numerically or physically larger. An experimental cycle consisted of four blocks of 24 trials. In Experiment 1, participants in the task change groups performed the numerical-size judgment task during the first three blocks, and then changed to the physical-size judgment task in the fourth. Participants in the continuation groups performed only the physical-size judgment task throughout all four blocks. We found negative effects of articulatory suppression on the fourth block, but only in the task change groups. Experiment 2 was a replication, with the modification that both groups received identical instructions and practice. Experiment 3 was a further replication using numerical-size judgment as the target task. The results showed a pattern similar to that from Experiment 1, with negative effects of articulatory suppression found only in the task change group. The congruity of numerical and physical size had a reliable effect on performance in all three experiments, but unlike the task change, it did not reliably interact with articulatory suppression. The results suggest that in addition to its well-established role in rapid task switching, the phonological loop also contributes to active goal maintenance in longer-term action control.

Prediction is Production: The missing link between language production and comprehension

“…It could be argued that the reduction of prediction effects in the SP group was the consequence of larger cognitive burden in the syllable production secondary task, relative to the tongue tapping and syllable listening secondary tasks. Nevertheless, previous studies revealed that articulatory suppression and tapping do not differ in the level of disruption they entail in several non-linguistic cognitive tasks such as digit size judgment tasks 34 and task switching 35 , 36 , suggesting that those secondary tasks do not drastically vary in the amount of cognitive load they imply. Furthermore, the only difference between the syllable production and tapping tasks in the present study was in the linguistic status of the production (being a syllable or a noise), which also indicates that the cognitive load imposed by those secondary tasks was similar.…”

Raven's Matrices and Working Memory: A Dual-Task Approach

“…However, although its capacity is limited, the phonological loop can be used strategically both for tasks that require the temporary maintenance of verbal information (Baddeley, 2007) and for tasks that might superficially appear to be independent of verbal control such as rapid task switching where it appears to influence control by maintaining the order of alternating tasks (Baddeley, Chincotta, & Adlam, 2001;Saito & Saeki, 2004). Furthermore, it has recently become clear that the loop may also be used to resist the disruption of actions by the persistence of earlier inappropriate rules, and that this benefit may last over relatively extended periods of time (Saeki, Baddeley, Hitch, & Saito, 2013). As such, the phonological loop might well play an important role in Raven's matrices, for example in optimizing the positive and reducing the negative carry-over effects between successive test items as proposed by Verguts and De Boeck (2002).…”

The prominent role of the cerebellum in the social learning of the phonological loop in working memory: How language was adaptively built from cerebellar inner speech required during stone-tool making

“…In brief, they proposed that “the primary purpose for which the phonological loop evolved was to store unfamiliar sound patterns while more permanent memory records are being constructed” (abstract). Following the findings of Ashida, Cerminara, Edwards, Apps and Brooks [33] , Castellazzi, Bruno, Toosy, Casiragi, Palesi, Savini et al [39] , Crespi, Read & Hurd [34] and Saeki, Baddeley, Hitch and Saito [40] , it is reasonable to suggest that new, repetitious words would be error-corrected and modeled in the cerebellum in relation to existing phonological working memory. These findings provide a direct neurological parallel to Baddeley, Gathercole and Papagno's description of the purpose and operation of the phonological loop for acquisition of new word forms, a scenario that within Vandervert's [23] , [41] proposals places the evolutionary origin of the phonological loop as a concomitant to new, fast-paced cerebellar attention shifting [42] among and internal modeling of new, repetitious movement requirements and counterpart inner vocalizations across the evolution of stone-tool making.…”

“…Vandervert [23] , [24] pointed out that, in their overall description of the evolution of stone-tool knapping and the brain, Stout and Hecht [30] concentrated on functions of the cerebral cortex and did not mention the possible roles of cerebellar internal modeling. To round out the discussion of learning stone-tool knapping, these roles could have included the following: (1) the role of neural coding in internal models in the cerebellum for cognitive and socially mediated skill development as described by Ito [7] – [9] ; Van Overwalle, Manto, Leggio & Delgado-Garcia [11] ; Vandervert [22] , (2) the role of inner or silent speech in the phonological loop of working memory in such action as described by Alderson-Day and Fernyhough [28] , Crespi, Read and Hurd [34] , Mariën, Ackermann, Adamaszek, Barwood, Beaton, Desmond, et al [18] , Marvel and Desmond [26] and Marvel, Morgan and Kronemer [6] , and (3) the role of the cerebellum in the internal modeling of repetitive silent speech in difficult tasks [18] , [33] , [39] , [40] . Recall, neural coding in cerebellar internal models, see (1) above, is accomplished by cerebellar microcomplexes which during repetitive skill learning correct movement and cognitive errors toward optimization of the skill at hand [7] – [9] .…”